//------------------------------// // Act II: Winter in Hazelnight, part 4 // Story: The World is Filled with Monsters // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// Vermilion remembered little else of that night. He remembered chaos, confused snippets like a dream one struggles to recall upon waking. Yet other parts seared themselves in his mind: the endless rows of trees like bars, the sting of sharp rocks beneath his hooves, the bandage around his chest so tight it felt like a garrotte, squeezing the breath from his lungs until he could barely breathe and in his panic he tore it off and the hot rush of blood that followed and the confused shouts of his friends as he passed them on the path, fleeing with all the speed and force he could squeeze from his terror-stricken heart. Those things he remembered. When he finally broke from the forest, as the edge of the sun’s red disk broke over the eastern horizon, he woke from his delirium. He stood there on the path, his chest heaving, lungs starved and burning, his throbbing heart so full of blood it felt like an infected boil ready to burst. His throat was sore beyond comprehension – hours of sucking down the cold air had chafed it raw. The muscles in his legs screamed, refusing to bend any further, stiff as oaks. He teetered and nearly fell on his side, and only barely managed a halfway-dignified collapse instead. A unicorn in his condition almost certainly wouldn’t survive. Their hearts and lungs could never handle the strain and would’ve failed or collapsed miles ago. The muscles in their legs would have already started to die. Vermilion was lucky, in that sense. He merely wished he was dead. He stared at the sun as the pain in his legs and chest slowly receded. The cold dirt leeched the warmth from his overheated body. The sweat that poured down his barrel collected in little puddles that froze. Blood began to flow sluggishly through his legs again, filling them with the tingle of countless pins and needles. For a few minutes it was enough to distract him from the rest of his pains. Snow in midsummer. Out of nothing rebounded Luna’s charge to him. Discover why it is snowing there at midsummer. “Worse than snow,” he mumbled. His parched lips cracked and bled. The light of the rising sun washed over him. It warmed his coat, and like flowing water it sluiced away the last of his confusion, the terror of that… that thing in the sky over Cirrane. For hours it had been all he could think about, his mind circling it like a froth spiraling around a drain for the whole flight through the forest. But now the waters stilled, and the last vestiges of the afflicting dread that had for half the night flowed like poison through his veins finally faded, and in the light of the sun he became himself again. And with the calm came realization. “No,” he whispered. He pushed himself up and stumbled, his legs unable to support his weight without folding like wet straw. A strangled scream gurgled from his raw throat, and he tried to stand again. On his fifth attempt he made it. “No no no nono.” He’d have shouted if he could, but all his tortured throat would allow was a hoarse croak, noise more than words. He tasted blood on the back of his tongue. The trees at the forest’s edge were just behind him. He turned slowly and began the agonizing march back toward his friends. If he could find them. If they were alive.If they wanted to see him again. That last realization broke through the final shreds of fog in his brain, and the sudden understanding of his cowardice, his utter contemptibility, caused him to retch. He bent over, his lips brushing the dirt, and gagged. A thin stream of pink spittle was all that emerged, dripping down his chin. He was a coward. His friends might be dead. If Canopy were alive she’d have him hanged. For a moment he almost wished it were so – it was no less than he deserved. He still had his saber, in fact – apparently it had found its way back into his scabbard – so the power to remedy his act of betrayal was close at hoof. Its edge wasn’t the finest in the world, but it would suffice for his throat. A quick tug, a bit of pain, and his cowardice would get the end it deserved. But the world wasn’t done with him yet. He spat out the last of the bile from his mouth and tottered onward into the forest. * * * He found Zephyr and Cloud Fire first. Or they found each other. He saw their shadows, zipping across the dirt, partially occluding the dappled sunlight breaking through the leaves. A shot of adrenaline electrified him, and he drew his saber, ready to fight off a strygian or something worse. Instead it was Zephyr. She swooped down out of the canopy and skidded to a stop a few feet away. Ignoring the saber, she swept forward and wrapped her forelegs around him in a tight embrace. “Luna’s tits, Cherry!” She tugged his head around to stare in his eyes, mindful still of the saber’s edge. “Do you know how worried we’ve been?!” A quiet thud of hooves on dirt announced Cloudy’s arrival. A moment later his embrace joined Zephyr’s, and the two of them squeezed him. Their scents mingled in his nose, settling on his mind like a balm. “Fucking Tartarus,” Cloudy growled. He released his grip around Vermilion’s shoulders and gingerly took the saber from his unprotesting mouth. “Here, give me that. Do you know how—no, fuck it. Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?” Vermilion shook his head. He tried to speak, but all he could do was cough. He doubled over, gasping, his throat so swollen and tight that each inhalation echoed in his chest with a whistling whooping sound. He sat with them, wracked with spasms until the attack passed. “I’m fine,” he finally managed to croak. His eyes watered from the effort of speaking. “The others? Rose?” “Hey, just breathe. They’re fine.” Zephyr rubbed his back with her hoof. “Slow breaths. C’mon.” Cloudy set his saber on the dirt carefully. It was too heavy for a pegasus to hold comfortably in their mouth and too sharp to try and hold with their hooves. “Strato’s with them. We all tried to keep up when you bugged out back at Cirrane, but damn, I didn’t know earth ponies could run like that.” “Here.” Zephyr uncorked her canteen and pressed it against his lips. “Drink up. Slowly.” He took a swig of the ice-cold water, swirled it around his mouth, then spat it out. The second mouthful he managed to swallow a drop at a time, his throat so sore the water felt like lemon juice on open wounds. But it was what he needed, and he kept drinking until the canteen was empty, and the weight of the water was a cold lump sloshing around in his gut. “Where are they?” he asked. It came out more easily this time. Zephyr gestured with her wing back along the path. “Still catching up. Give ‘em a few hours, I’d say.” “Was there anything—” A memory of the terror he’d seen, the formless, shifting abomination being born in the night sky, bubbled back up to the surface of his mind, and his throat seized again in panic. Every muscle went rigid, and he almost turned and fled again. Only the warm presence of Zephyr’s wing around his shoulders kept him grounded, and in a few seconds the panic passed. He took a breath and started over. “Was there anything following you? Out of Cirrane?” “Uh, don’t think so?” Cloudy said. “I was more interested in what was in front of us at the time. Once we got to the woods the attacks stopped. I think we killed or scared off most of the bastards.” No. No they hadn’t. If Cloudy had seen it like Vermilion had, he would never even think such foolish words. He opened his mouth to say so, to explain, but the moment his mind turned back toward the nightmare over Cirrane, his throat closed again. His body began to shake, and only when his lungs screamed for air was he able to gasp for air. “What happened back there, Cherry?” Zephyr asked. “We made it through the village fine, then the next thing I knew you were screaming. I thought something got you.” “Something did, looks like.” Cloudy settled down on Vermilion’s other side, squinting at him. He ran his hoof over Vermilion’s shoulder, which Vermilion only now dimly realized was crusted with dried blood. It still seeped sluggishly from the wolf’s bite. “Rose said you were fine, though. Put a bandage on it and everything.” “It wasn’t that. It was… there was…” He licked his lips, struggling to sort out his thoughts. “It was in the sky. The nightmare. The thing Graymoor saw in his mirror and Luna saw on her map table. It was there, in Cirrane. I… I swear I’m not making this up, Cloudy. I saw it. I saw it!” “Hey, okay.” Cloudy’s wings flapped for balance as he held his forelegs up. “I never said you didn’t.” “What was it like?” Zephyr asked. She peered around at his shoulder, then shoved her muzzle into her saddlebag, emerging a moment later with a roll of gauze. Between her and Cloudy they had his shoulder securely re-wrapped before he could protest. “I, uh…” Vermilion closed his eyes. It had only been a few hours since those horrible, charmed seconds in Cirrane, but already he found himself grasping at the fragments of memory. The images dissolved as quickly as he recalled them. Like a dream itself – all he remembered was the numbing horror. “Horror,” he mumbled. “That’s all I remember. It was… It came out of the stars, it swallowed the moon, and it looked down at me. It saw me. I’ve never felt more afraid. I think… I think I’d have rather died than stay there with it.” “Uh.” Cloudy sat in silence. “That… so it wasn’t like one of those owls?” Vermilion laughed. It came out like a dog’s bark, a helpless spasm in his chest. But for the first time in hours he smiled, a bitter, twisted smile, contemptuous of itself. “No. Not like one of those owls.” “Not to ruin the creepy mood, but do you still have that sapphire?” Zephyr asked. “I kinda lost track of it after things got crazy in the shrine.” “Um.” Good question. Another shot of fear jolted him, and he prised open his saddlebags. They were jumbled, shaken by his hours-long run, but beneath the canteen and bandages and oilcloth-wrapped rations, he found the only two things that mattered: Canopy’s journal, its edges a bit frayed by his rough treatment, and the Heart of Winter sapphire, looking not-at-all damaged by the night’s long journey. He slumped in relief. “Yeah, got it.” “Good. We weren’t planning to go back for it,” Cloudy said. “Gotta know when to let go sometimes, you know?” “Starting to think about it more often.” Vermilion stood. The bandage around his shoulder stretched but held. “Okay. I’m ready.” Zephyr exchanged a glance with Cloudy. “For what?” “To get the others.” He took a step down the road, his hoof scraping along the frozen dirt for just a few inches before his muscles seized and he had to set it down. He took a second to catch his breath, then repeated the motion with each of his other hooves, and in that manner began to slowly shuffle down the road. “Uh, yeah, no.” Zephyr caught him with a single flap of her wings and put a hoof against his chest. The lightest member of their party, who should’ve been able to offer no more resistance to him than could a gentle breeze, managed to stop him in his tracks. “How about we wait here for them to catch up?” They could. That would be easy. Part of him wanted it, the part of him that wanted to just collapse and sleep until the pain went away. But there was another part of him, a part that understood that he needed this, that he needed to suffer, that he needed punishment for his cowardly flight. That this pain was just the start of what he deserved. He pushed forward. Zephyr pushed back. He teetered and fell onto his haunches with a grunt. Cloudy muttered something. It sounded like ‘idiot,’ but Vermilion’s ears were still crowded with the sound of his exhausted heart’s endless pumping. He sat there, wheezing. “Just rest, Cherry.” Zephyr draped a wing over his shoulders. “It’s a long-enough walk back to Hazelnight without you making it longer. They’ll reach us soon.” “What if something jumps them? We don’t know what’s left in the woods.” “They’ll be fine,” Cloudy said. “Strato’s no slouch, and the unicorns can take care of themselves. They burned half of Cirrane down last night. If ponies ever move back there they’ll have a lot of rebuilding to do.” “Come on. Here, have some more water.” Zephyr pressed her canteen to Vermilion’s lips, dribbling more water into his mouth. He lapped at it greedily, unable to refuse, any pretense at dignity forgotten again. In the end, it didn’t take much more convincing on their part. Exhaustion and pain overcame his weak attempts at penance. * * * It was an hour or so later, and Vermilion still feeling as miserable and broken as before, when the rest of their party finally caught up with him. The two unicorns and Stratolathe emerged from the forest’s shadows into the dawn’s cool sunlight. Quicklime saw them, shouted something, and began galloping down the path. Rose and Strato picked up their pace to a trot. They were alive. They weren’t hurt. Part of Vermilion wanted to sob with relief. The rest wanted to shrivel up in shame. He lowered his head and squeezed his eyes shut. “C’mon. Look, they’re fine.” Zephyr squeezed him with her wing. “Everypony’s fine.” A moment later, something small and warm and soft hit him around the chest. Little legs squeezed him in the tightest hug he’d ever experienced from another pony, and Quicklime’s high voice sounded just inches from his ears. “Cherry! You had us so worried you stupid lout! Are you okay? Is he okay? Hey, hey! Listen! Are you okay?” “He’s fine.” Cloudy pried Quicklime off of him and set her down on the path. “He’s worn out, though. Give him a little space.” “Space?” She huffed. “He goes running off into the night through a forest filled with monsters, and you want us to give him space? What if he runs off again?” “I’m not.” Vermilion’s voice came out as a rough croak. “I’m sorry. I didn’t… I shouldn’t have done that. I couldn’t stop myself.” “You had us really worried. I was really worried! What happened back there?” “It was…” Vermilion looked up from his hooves. Rose and Strato were nearly upon them. There was a grim look on the unicorn’s face. It seized his throat, and he couldn’t squeeze out any more words before they reached him. Rose stopped a few paced away. She frowned at him, frowned at the pegasi, then frowned at him again. Her eye lingered on his blood-crusted shoulder and the ragged wound that showed beneath the coat. She growled something under her breath, and tugged open her saddlebags. A bundle of gauze floated out. “Are you hurt? More, I mean.” She pulled the gauze apart and brushed the wound with it, scraping free flakes of dried blood. The gouge began to seep blood again, and she pressed the fabric against his coat, wrapping the ends around his torso and securing it with a tight knot. “I’m fine,” he mumbled. “Like Tartarus you are.” Rose pressed her ear against his chest. “Take a deep breath?” He did, his lungs wheezing in protest. It was almost enough to set off another coughing fit, which he barely held in. It felt like he’d tried to swallow a sea urchin. “What happened back there?” Stratolathe asked. He hung back a few paces, content not to get up in Vermilion’s face while so many other ponies were crowded around. “Last I saw we were free and clear of the village, then suddenly you were shouting something and went tearing past us like death itself was on your tail.” Worse than that. He could barely remember what had terrified him now; only flashes of images remained. Eyes in the night sky. Something that swallowed the moon. And the utter, helpless terror that insects must feel when caught out in the sun. That he remembered. He swallowed and tried again. “Something in the sky. Huge. It saw us, Strato. It was watching the whole time. It’s still up there.” “What do you mean, ‘something’?” Rose said. She pressed the underside of her hoof against the hollow of his neck, feeling for his pulse, and her muzzle wrinkled. She fished through her saddlebags and pulled out a tiny vial filled with some brown, waxy substance, and carefully scraped a bit into her canteen. She sloshed it around, then held it up to his lips. “Drink, then explain.” He accepted the canteen, though his stomach was by now so full from all the water his friends had forced upon him that he barely needed more. Still, he choked it down, nearly gagging at the bitter, almost rubbery taste. “Gah. What is this?” “Tincture of laudanum. It’ll help calm your heart, which sounds like it’s about to burst out of your chest.” “C’mon, what’d you see?” Quicklime squeezed her way between them, nimbly avoiding Zephyr’s hooves trying to keep her away. “What’d you see?!” “It was…” He stumbled to silence. Three times now he’d tried explaining the horror in the skies above Cirrane, and he still hadn’t done it justice. He couldn’t find the words to explain the terror that had sprouted in his breast. “The mirror in Graymoor’s study. Do you remember how you felt, when he used it? The blood magic? It was like that, but overwhelming. Endless. It was the same nightmare Graymoor saw.” A chill washed over him at the memory, and it took several seconds for him to realize that the cold was a physical, real thing. Clouds had stolen a march across the sky while he recovered, and now swept across the sun as well, folding all the land in their shadow. The wind picked up, flowing down the valley walls around them, and he shivered. The unicorns pulled their cloaks tighter. Even the pegasi, whose thick coats and thicker blood seemed invincible in the winter, looked up at the sky with frowns. “We need to make camp,” Rose said. “Somewhere he can rest.” Too slow. They couldn’t wait. He shook his head. “We can make Cavewatch by dark. We’re more than halfway there.” “And we need to get back to Hazelnight,” Stratolathe said. “We have the sapphire. The whole damn town is counting on us. Don’t look at me like that, Rose, I know he’s in a bad way. But we have to consider everypony’s welfare.” “One of us could fly ahead with the stone,” Cloudy said. “It’s just a few hours flight.” “No.” Vermilion pushed himself to his hooves. “The sapphire is… I never explained what happened in the shrine, did I? It—the shrine wasn’t what we thought. It wasn’t for Luna! It was for that damn thing in the sky, and now we’re carrying around a part of it—” “Hey, hey, relax.” Cloudy pushed up next to him, slinging a leg over Vermilion’s shoulders. “Deep breaths, buddy.” Vermilion shrugged him off. “It’s not safe. We may need it too much to get rid of it, but I’m not letting anypony just fly off with it either. We’ll all take it to Graymoor and explain what happened. I don’t… I don’t want anypony to be alone with that thing. Not after last night.” Nopony said anything in reply. They exchanged glances, and in the silence Vermilion heard all that he needed. He huffed and pushed himself back onto his hooves. “I know I sound crazy,” he said. “It’s… I don’t blame you. I’ve never been more ashamed of myself than I am right now.” He held up a hoof to forestall his friends’ protests. “I know you disagree, too, and I love you for it. But we can talk about all that later, after we get back to Hazelnight. Everything else can wait.” “I’m not sure you can walk that far,” Rose said. Her tone was even, but anger was written in the wrinkles on her muzzle. “By all rights you should’ve passed out by now.” Yeah, well. Perhaps being an earth pony was good for something after all. They’d be surprised by what he could suffer. He didn’t bother to answer Rose’s doubts, and instead turned down the road, heading north. After a few seconds, he heard his friends begin to follow. * * * Cavewatch hadn’t changed in the two nights since their last visit. In a better world, a warmer one, perhaps, where icy pellets of sleet weren’t peppering them and he wasn’t exhausted unto death, Cavewatch would’ve been a place to relax, to sleep, to commune with Luna, and recover his wits. Instead he collapsed as soon as the campfire was lit, and remembered nothing until the sun began to rise in the east. Rose was up when he woke. She had the last shift, apparently, and sat with a book gently floating in the air before her. He realized after a moment that it was Canopy’s journal. He glanced at his saddlebags, which were open beside him. From within, the faint glow of the Heart of Winter sapphire dueled with the cold light of dawn. “How do you feel?” Rose whispered. Not that there was much chance of waking the others; they seemed dead to the world. Like crap. He tried to speak and found he couldn’t manage much more than a hoarse whisper himself. The air whistled in his throat as he breathed. “Better.” “Uh huh.” The fire was smoldering beside her, and she pulled small kettle out of the coals. Steam wafted from its mouth, and as she poured the hot water into a tin cup the steam billowed out like clouds in the clear, cold air. A small paper packet floated out of her saddlebags, poured itself into the hot water, and she gave the whole thing a little shake. “Here. Try this.” He accepted it and held it gingerly between his hooves. Just a sip was enough to sting his tongue, and he blew on it gently. “Medicine?” “Just tea. Lemongrass, chamomile, and some honey. It’ll help your throat.” He let it cool a minute before venturing another sip. The tin cup radiated heat away rapidly, and soon he was able to drink it with ease. “Thank you.” A slight nod was all the acknowledgement that got. “Did you see Luna last night?” “No.” Part of him wished he had, while another, perhaps wiser part, dreaded any such meeting. She would not be happy with her servant’s performance. “A few nights ago she said something clouded her vision out here. Made it difficult to see ponies’ dreams.” “Mm.” Rose looked unconvinced. “You told us before that she appeared in your dreams. I guess I just assumed you meant that you were dreaming of her. But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” “Yeah.” For a moment he remembered Luna’s presence, her embrace, and the cold air and the frozen ground beneath his blanket ceased to chill his bones; instead it soothed his aches, and his muscles eased. For just as Luna’s touch was winter, the winter was Luna’s touch, and it was like she held him in her wings again. He let out a long breath. “She talks to me. Cloudy too. If she hasn’t visited your dreams yet, she will soon. It’s part of our bargain with her.” Rose’s ears tilted away, and she licked her lips before replying. “She’s… I’ve dreamed of her. Sometimes I dream that she’s talking to me. It happened in Maplebridge, and I just assumed it was my imagination, or at most a message from her. But to actually have her visit my dreams? Talk to me, like we’re talking now? I don’t know how I feel about that.” “It’s how I was able to save us in Maplebridge.” “Mm.” Her eye flicked toward his saddlebag. “And Cirrane?” He followed her gaze. The sapphire’s light was swallowed now by the dawn. “She… I thought it was her, at first. It sounded like Luna. But her eyes…” “Sounds like your dreams are getting crowded.” Rose turned toward the sun, now just rising above the mountains to the east. “It’ll start warming up soon. Should we wake the others?” “Let me get some breakfast going first. Ponies are easier to wake when you have food ready for them.” He pushed himself upright, and froze as the muscles in his legs all shouted at once in agony. He ignored the pain and kept walking, circling the fire, and soon his aching muscles gave up their complaints as a wasted effort. Rose followed and settled down across from the campfire. The snow dusting her mane began to melt as he added more kindling to the embers. “That creature you saw in the sky. You said it was the same being from Graymoor’s mirror?” “Yes, but…” He paused to marshal his thoughts. “It didn’t look the same. It didn’t look like anything. But the sense of it, the… have you ever had a dream where something was chasing you? Something that you didn’t know what it was, only that you had to run and hide, and that if it saw you it would be upon you in an instant and your life would end just as quickly? Seeing that thing was like that moment in the dream, Rose, when the thing chasing you sees you, and all your efforts to run and hide are forfeit, and you’re too afraid to move even as it closes the distance between you, and you feel so cold in that moment before you wake? It was like that, Rose, but it never ended. It saw me and I was cold and all I could do was scream.” Rose stared at him as he finished. The hairs of her coat stood on end, and he could see the muscles in her throat working, as though trying to swallow something. Finally, she nodded. “Yes. I’ve had that dream, once or twice.” “Well.” He stared at the campfire. Fresh flames licked at the kindling, and he put a few logs atop it to burn.  “That’s what it was like.” He made porridge for the others. Nopony spoke while they ate. It was the best part of breakfast. * * * The morning sun provided light but little warmth. Even as the day drew toward noon it remained cold, and after a brief stop for lunch at a crossroad pasture, clouds again rolled in from the north, bringing snow with them. The mountains around them were already white with winter’s touch, just a month after midsummer. “Is it always like this?” Vermilion asked. “What, cold?” Stratolathe tilted his head up and sniffed. “It’s never hot in the summers up here, lad, but this cold is something odd. Just a snap, I hope. Otherwise winter’ll be a real bitch.” “Has it ever been like this before?” Strato shrugged. “S’always sometime that’s been like this, if you go far ‘nough back. For everything in the world that loves the summer, there’s something that loves the winter. And sometimes those things are strong enough to bring the winter with them when they come.” “Do you think that’s what’s behind this? The monsters, that nightmare, everything?” “Couldn’t say, lad. Might be a question for Graymoor.” As they walked closer to Hazelnight, the road began to fill with the detritus of desperate ponies. Broken wagons and abandoned belongings littered the ditches to the sides. By the time the roofs of Hazelnight appeared in the distance, perched against the side of the valley’s mountains walls, they could see that the refugee camp outside the gates had grown just in the four days they’d been gone. A pall of smoke, fed by dozens of campfires, hung over the tent city. Vermilion could smell it from miles away. “This must be every pony in the valley,” Zephyr said. She took up a position on their left flank, eyeing the refugee camp warily as they passed. “There’s thousands of them here.” “Better here than out there,” Cloudy said. “Be nice if they could all fit inside the walls, though.” “There ain’t no pony in Hazelnight who doesn’t wish we had more walls,” Stratolathe said. “But we got the walls we got, and we’ve fit all the ponies inside that we could. Only Lord Graymoor can save this lot.” “Are we going straight to see Graymoor?” Quicklime asked. “Please tell me we can at least drop all this stuff off at the inn first.” “There’s probably no room left,” Zephyr said. “Was hard enough getting a spot last time, and that was before even more refugees arrived.” “I have an arrangement with the owner of the New Home Inn,” Stratolathe said. “She keeps a room open for me. It’ll be crowded with all of us, but at least it won’t be cold.” “Thank Celestia.” Quicklime let out a heaving sigh that rattled the tins and pens and scroll cases in her saddlebags. “I just want to get off my hooves for a day or so. Is that too much to ask?” “Might be,” Zephyr said. She angled her head toward Stratolathe. “You think Graymoor wants to see us right away?” “He’ll want to know we’re back and safe, at least.” Stratlathe adjusted his cloak, unfastening the bindings that concealed his wings and letting them free. “I can fly ahead and let him know. You all go to the inn. I’ll meet you there with instructions.” “You think he’ll want to see us today? Tonight?” Strato shrugged. His wings beat, and he rose into a hover above the road. “Probably! Don’t go off on any new adventures just yet, at least.” With that he lifted higher, circled their party, and zoomed off toward the city, now just a mile ahead. He cut a path through the haze of greasy smoke rising from the campfires. “Wish I could fly,” Quicklime mumbled. Rose leaned down to nuzzle the side of her neck. “We’ll be there soon.” Vermilion tried to keep a bit of levity in his voice. The town was less than a mile ahead. He could already see the individual ponies guarding the gate. “Then we unload and take a break.” “And baths,” Rose said. “Fine. And baths.” It wasn’t worth disagreeing. Besides, the hot water might help. * * * It was early afternoon by the time they cleared the gate and the guards. They stared at him and the bandaged wound on his shoulder and made no attempt to stop their party. By the time they reached the New Home Inn the sun was halfway down the western sky, and so thoroughly obscured by thick, dark clouds that it may as well have been early evening. The inn itself was crowded, with families crammed into the common areas on blankets surrounded by piles of belongings. All the benches and chairs and tables had been removed for more space, and the constant din of foals shouting and running was shocking after four days on the road with mostly silence as their companion. They shoved past the crowd toward the stairs, stepped over ponies sleeping on the landing, and found Stratolathe’s room. It was barely large enough for the bed, and they ended up piling all of their gear and bags and blanket rolls at its foot. Vermilion kept his saddlebags on. He wasn’t going to let that sapphire out of his sight until they’d turned it over to Graymoor. Quicklime hopped up onto the bed and flopped over. “Okay. Wake me when the town is saved.” “Bath first.” Rose’s magic tugged at Quicklime’s ear. “Nnnn don’t wanna.” “Yes.” Rose tugged until Quicklime quit protesting, and as a group they made their way to the spring downstairs. Everywhere was crowded with ponies, even the slick, mineral-encrusted stones of the natural baths. They stepped on sodden blankets and around sleeping mares and stallions to get to the pools. The pegasi hopped straight into the water, followed shortly by Quicklime, who paddled around with only her snout and eyes above the steaming surface. Rose pulled him up short. “Let me get that off.” Her horn flashed, and some invisible blade sliced the bandage as clean as a razor. The gauze pad stuck to his shoulder, and she gently pulled it away, making quiet shhh noises, as though he were a scared foal. She saw him staring, cleared her throat, and resumed with a more clinical mein. “It looks good, especially considering we weren’t able to stitch it,” she said. “Already healing. Amazing. Sometimes I don’t know how earth ponies ever die.” “Hit us with a big enough stick.” Vermilion worked his shoulder cautiously. The wound was actually several different tears in his coat, some deeper than others. The wolf’s canines, he assumed. The margins of the wound were pink and slightly swollen, but there was no tenderness or sign of infection. The scars would hardly be visible beneath his coat. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Rose glanced at his saddlebags. “Want me to hold that while you bathe? Don’t worry about getting water in the wound.” “Sure.” He shrugged out of the bags, and was about to pass them to Rose when a spasm of thought froze his muscles. For a moment the thought of letting the sapphire out of his sight, out of his hooves, terrified him. It flashed through his veins like ice water. Rose apparently didn’t notice. Her magic lifted the saddlebags before he could react, settling them on her barrel, and she walked over to the edge of the pool to sit with Zephyr. And nothing terrible happened. Vermilion’s muscles loosened, and he let out a ragged breath. The stress of the last few days was obviously getting to him. He shoved his fears and worries into the back of his mind where they belonged, and went to get clean. The scalding, lime-saturated water felt like it was near boiling after four days on a cold road. He forced himself to sit still until the pain passed, and the heat worked its way through his coat and into his exhausted body. “Ah, that’s nice,” he mumbled. The others apparently agreed. They chatted quietly, reluctant to disturb the relative silence in the spring compared with the bedlam of the overcrowded rooms above. He closed his eyes and set his head against the rough stone edge of the pool, content to ignore for a few minutes all the burdens and worries hanging over them. Hooves clip-clopped on the stone beside him, and he cracked an eye open to see Rose settling on the edge of the pool. She dangled a hoof in the water, stirring it with little ripples. His eyes went to the saddlebags on her back. Still secure and closed. “We’re almost done,” he said. “After this, I’m asking Luna for a few weeks off.” “Think she’ll give it to you?” “I guess? She’s not a slavedriver. After Maplebridge she gave us all the time we needed to recover.” “Mhm.” Rose lifted her hoof and shook it, sending little droplets of water flinging back into the pool. She held it for a moment, paused for a moment, then brushed away a sodden bit of his forelock that had fallen across his face. “And how long do you think we can keep doing this.” “Well, uh…” A few months, maybe? Surely they would be victorious by then, the darkness around Equestria stamped out and replaced by the Sisters' light. But then he thought back to Luna’s lair, and the map table, and the tenuous, fragile borders around Equestria, beyond which loomed tides of unending darkness. He remembered the empty spot where Hollow Shades had been. How many more monsters were there in the forests, mountains and deserts? “I don’t know,” he finished lamely. “I hadn’t thought about it.” “Maybe you should start. Canopy was always planning ahead.” Hearing the major’s name twisted his insides. A little stab of guilt. He’d promised Luna he would organize Canopy’s journal into a real text. Put order to all the wisdom she’d scribbled down over years of campaigns. And what had he done so far? Struggle through the first few pages. Rose was watching him. He cleared his throat. “Sorry, just thinking about her.” She nodded. “We all do, sometimes.” No other difficult questions followed. He closed his eyes again, and let the gentle heat and scent of calcified lime and the mare beside him steep in his muzzle, and for a few more minutes until Rose dragged them all out, he was able to relax for the first time in days. * * * Stratolathe was waiting when the returned upstairs. His coat and mane were lightly brushed, and he’d changed out of his barding into a more casual coat suitable for the cold. He sniffed at the air as they entered, and Vermilion noticed his eyes settling on the saddlebags draped over Rose’s back. “We’ve still got it,” Vermilion assured him. “Haven’t let it out of our sight.” “I figured. Hard not to worry about it, though, you know? Ponies died trying to recover it.” “Hopefully it will be enough,” Vermilion said. “Is Graymoor ready for us? I don’t want to keep him waiting.” “No rush. He has a few more things to prepare. But if you all are ready, we can head to his manor.” Vermilion looked back at the others. They were all bone-weary, their ears and tails drooping. They all needed some rest. But this was too important – they could rest when the stone was in Graymoor’s hooves and his ritual complete. One by one, they met his eyes and nodded. “We’re ready,” he said. The veiled sun struggled to push through the low clouds to the west as they took to the streets. Long shadows cast by the tall stone buildings plunged Hazelnight into a premature darkness. A cold wind whistled in from the north, flowing down the mountains at the head of the valley, bringing with them the scent of snow. Now and then Vermilion saw flurries zipping through the light cast by lanterns along the street. Quicklime tugged her scarf closer around her neck. It was the same one she’d started with on the journey to Hollow Shades – knit yarn, yellow, with brown ducks marching along the rim. “Snow in midsummer,” she muttered. “Lot of ponies outside,” Cloudy said. “They’re not pegasi. Will they be warm enough?” “Folks up here are used to the cold,” Stratolathe said. He set a brisk pace for them through the streets. “A little freeze won’t bother them. And Lord Graymoor has ordered blankets and tents for those without them.” “Charitable of him,” Rose said. Stratolathe glanced back at her sharply, but there was no sign of mockery on Rose’s face. “It is,” he grunted. “Everything the lord does is for this town. There’s nothing he wouldn’t do to save his ponies’ lives.” Vermilion waited a few paces for everypony’s attention to return to the path ahead, then sidled over toward Rose. “There’s no need to provoke him,” he whispered. “I still don’t trust him,” Rose responded just as quietly. “Graymoor, that is. Stratolathe is fine.” “And Stratolathe trusts Graymoor.” “Ponies can be blinded by loyalty. We still don’t know what Graymoor has planned. Just that it involves blood magic and that sapphire. Does that seem like a good combination to you? Isn’t this unnatural cold worrying enough?” “It…” Vermilion glanced at his saddlebags. Somewhere inside them, wrapped in a bit of spare gauze from Rose’s first aid kit, waited the Heart of Winter sapphire. And what an odd name for a gem that was. Huh. The streets grew more crowded with ponies as they worked their way to Hazelnight’s heart. Makeshift camps filled the empty lots. Crude wood corrals had been built in the alleyways between the stone buildings, providing a bit of shelter from the wind and snow. The town stank of unwashed crowds and untended wood fires. Extra guards stood sentry outside Graymoor’s manor. They looked just as young and inexperienced as any Vermilion had seen in the town, all except for one sergeant at the door, a grizzled dun earth pony who nodded at Stratolathe as they approached. He opened the door for them and braced it against the wind with his hooves. “He’s upstairs,” the sergeant said. “He’s expecting you.” Stepping into the manor was a relief from the chilly wind. Vermilion stomped his hooves on the oak floorboards while Rose and Quicklime doffed their scarves and cloaks. The pegasi, as usual, hadn’t bothered with any cold-weather clothes, and Vermilion had simply forgotten to wear any. Buckeye would’ve yelled at him for that. Buckeye never let any of his troops forget things – he remembered it for them. Vermilion wondered if some bit of wisdom in Canopy’s journal would help him be more mindful in the future. “This way,” Stratolathe said. He waited until the unicorns were ready, then led them up the stairs. Vermilion picked up his pace, coming shoulder-to-shoulder with the older pegasus. “Stratolathe, you knew the ponies who died trying to retrieve the gem, didn’t you?” “Aye.” Stratolathe nodded stiffly. “Would…” Vermilion stumbled over his words. “Do you want to give the gem to Lord Graymoor? You fought for it as much as any of us.” And he hadn’t panicked or failed them, either. “That’s…” Strato trailed off with a sigh. “That’s mighty kind of you, Vermilion. But you lead this team. You should see it through.” Vermilion nodded. At least he’d tried. “Alright.” Lord Graymoor was waiting for them at the top of the stairs. He smiled at the sight of them. “Vermilion, friends, welcome home. Stratolathe told me about your success. I can’t thank you enough.” “It was difficult, but my friends were up to the task. Stratolathe’s help was invaluable.” Vermilion reached back to unsnap his saddlebags and pull out the bundle of gauze with his teeth. He unwrapped it carefully, revealing the steady azure glow of the Heart of Winter sapphire, and he tipped the stone into his hoof. The light sparkling out from within entranced him. It cast pale shadows on the wall. He shook his head. “On behalf of Princess Luna of Equestria, please accept this, in the hopes that it will help save your town.” He extended his hoof toward Graymoor. A flash of irritation passed across Graymoor’s face at Luna’s name, but then he nodded. “I gratefully accept. Your contribution will long be remembered.” He carefully plucked the stone from Vermilion’s hoof, and held it before his muzzle, staring deep deep into it. His eyes began to water. “Are…” Vermilion fumbled again. “Are you okay?” “Of course.” Graymoor slipped the stone into a tiny breast pocket. “This way, please. The ritual is almost ready.” They followed a few steps behind. Through his office, past the roaring fire, and out onto the wide balcony overlooking the town. Below them, Hazelnight stretched out for blocks, until the city walls gave way to the moors outside. Countless fires burned in the camps crowded around the town, but the north wind blew the smoke away, leaving Vermilion with nothing to smell except the faint scent of iron rising from a dish set out before them. “More blood magic,” Rose noted. “Yes.” Graymoor said. He dipped the tip of his hoof in the dish, and began drawing a complex figure on the balcony floor in red. The blood glistened in the light of the lanterns. “The last, I hope. Stratolathe?” Stratolathe stepped up beside his master. He held up a hoof, and Graymoor used one of his slender lancets to pierce the thin skin along the hoof wall. Stratolathe jerked at the sudden pain, but said nothing as blood began to drip into the silver dish. Vermilion watched, entranced. Something about the ritual seemed serene, almost beautiful, in spite of the pain it required. He was used to thinking of self-sacrifice, but blood magic was the concept of sacrifice boiled down to its essential elements. It was as simple a sacrifice could get. In some way, no matter what Rose thought of it, that was admirable. Quicklime scooted closer. Her eyes were wide and darted between the dish and the patterns drawn in blood on the floor. Her lips were moving silently. “Luna told me, once, that blood magic was powerful,” Vermilion said. “That it was unbound.” “She’s correct,” Graymoor said. He added a few more designs to the floor using Stratolathe’s blood. “It is limited only by what you are willing to sacrifice.” “And what are you willing to sacrifice?” He had to speak louder. The wind pouring down the mountains had picked up, bringing a chill bite with it. Icy granules of sleet filled the air and began to coat the wood railing around them. “A lord must be willing to sacrifice everything for his people,” Graymoor replied. “Have you ever known a leader willing to do that, Vermilion?” For a moment, Vermilion was back in another cold place, the wind-swept square in the center of Hollow Shades. He saw Blightweaver again, looming above the town like a mountain. He saw Canopy, clutched in the monster’s claws. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes, I have.” “Then you understand.” Graymoor took the sapphire out of his pocket and set it in the dish. Its blue glow turned the thin pool of blood black. “What is this spell?” Rose asked. The whipping winds forced her to shout. “You haven’t told us yet what you plan!” “It’s a summon of some sort, isn’t it?” Quicklime said. Vermilion could barely hear her. “It’s… I recognize parts of this. Some of these glyphs. But what? Why?” “Because we needed something to fight the Nightmare,” Graymoor said. He braced his hooves against the wind. Wind vanes atop the buildings around them spun wildly, filling the air with a metal shriek. The lanterns flickered as the flames within began to die. “You saw it, Vermilion! Stratolathe told me about Cirrane. You saw the same thing I’ve seen!” Vermilion nodded. Though the wind cut like a knife, he found he could barely move. The gem in the blood was singing something, something about snow and ice and darkness. Tendrils of blood began to rise from the dish, reaching out like vines to connect with the sigils drawn on the floor. It was terrifying. It was beautiful. “What?” Rose cried. She huddled next to the door. Zephyr and Cloud Fire struggled just to stay on their hooves. “What are you calling?” “The only thing that might stand a chance!” Graymoor stepped forward, setting his left hoof in the dish. The blood inside sloshed thickly and began to crawl up his leg. “Some monsters cannot be fought by ponies, they can only be fought by other monsters!” The wind became a tornado. Slate shingles flew from the roofs around them, spinning off into the town to shatter on the cobblestones. The lanterns gave up at last, their flames vanishing into embers that flew into the maelstrom. The light of the Heart of Winter sapphire flared brighter, shining like the moon itself, like a tiny star given to the world as a gift. It rose into the air atop a column of animate blood. The temperature plummeted, to freezing and far beyond. Snow condensed out of the very air and joined the whirlwind. Frost began to grow on the stone walls. Rose shouted something. The wind stole it away. Her horn flashed with light, but the very cold seemed to defeat her magic. It flickered and died, and only the light of the sapphire remained. It rose higher and higher, above their heads, into the heart of the wind. Dimly, beneath his awe, doubt began to gnaw at Vermilion’s heart. He tried to step forward, but ice held his hooves fast to the floor. He struggled to break one leg free. The sapphire flashed once, twice, then a final time, brighter than the sun. Somepony screamed, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Darkness followed. In time, just a few seconds though it felt like hours, he opened his eyes. A dim glow had replaced the sapphire, and his vision slowly adjusted to behold the sight before him. The spirit floated above the balcony. Several times larger than a pony, it wore the shape of one, but leaner, spare, feral. He could count the ribs along her barrel. A wild, unkempt mane dozens of feet long flowed in the wind, mingling behind her with an untamed tail. Her eyes were the source of the dim light, each glowing with a piercing blue that spoke of glaciers. Fangs as long as his hooves broke through her flayed lips. And there was cold. It spilled out of her body like water from a fountain. The wood railing froze and shattered as the spirit touched down on it with her hooves. Fog rolled away from her, billowing out like a cloud to flood the streets below. The very air cracked where it touched her. Vermilion could feel his skin beginning to freeze where it faced her. Graymoor stepped forward. Alone among them, he was unfrozen. He raised a blood-smeared leg up, offering his hoof to her. The spirit considered him, briefly. As a pony might examine a cherry, offered as a treat. Finally, she lowered her mighty head, and touched her muzzle to his hoof. He fell over, frozen solid. The balcony rattled. Vermilion tried to shout, but there was no air anymore. The spirit had stolen it all. She looked at him, and for a moment her depthless eyes found his, and an echoing voice whispered something in his mind. It drowned out all his thoughts and left him reeling. Arnapkaphaaluk. The spirit whirled away. Her enormous tail swept across the stone face of the building above them, coating it with ice. The building rocked as the foot-thick stones cracked clean through. The spirit had no wings. But windigoes needed no wings to fly. She lifted her head, and above them, the clouds peeled away, revealing the sky. The first stars had just begun to emerge, clearer than Vermilion had ever seen, and the spirit studied them for a moment, looking for her enemy. Then her gaze turned toward the south, and she flew. A blizzard followed, more snow than Vermilion had ever seen, whipped into a frenzy by her passage. The buildings beneath her shattered in her wake. Ponies screamed. The fires died. Ice and cold and darkness fell upon the town. And at last winter, true winter, came to Hazelnight.